Conquest of Canaan

“ They were absorbed in this mutual strife and in warding off the hostile assaults of the Elamites and other neighbouring nations; neither state was as yet thinking of far-extended conquest and dominion. The Israelites entered Canaan and carried on a war of extermination against its inhabitants, but they only succeeded in establishing themselves in parts of the country, generally in the more hilly districts, as the [Pg 216] Canaanites, possessing chariots and horses, were able to maintain possession of the plains. ”

“ We say there are some expositors who hold that it is only in a way parallel to this that the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites enjoyed the sanction of God. Without making a great deal of the wickedness of the Canaanite tribes, they dwell on their weakness, their poor ideas of life, their feeble aims, their want of developing power, their inability to rise. Into the heart of these tribes there comes a race that somehow [380] possesses extraordinary capabilities and force. History has shown it to be one of the great dominant races of the world. ”

“ As we have seen, Joshua's victory left the conquest of Canaan but begun. It so happened that the great powers were too absorbed with their own affairs to expand by conquest, so the earlier inhabitants of Palestine and the Hebrews were left to fight out their difficulties as best they might. For some generations after the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan, confusion and disorder ruled. The invaders would win the heights in a given region, while around them in the plains and valleys, flourished hostile clans, often harassing and threatening their settlements. ”

“ Now we may question whether this change of law was due to the change in habits from a nomadic life to a settled state, simply and solely. The Israelites when they invaded Canaan found there an already settled people, if we may believe their own account. There were cities and houses and crops already there. From secular sources, such as the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, we know that some time before the conquest there was an advanced state of civilization in Canaan. We even know the names of many kings and cities. ”

“ The conquest of a land like Canaan by nomads required a comparatively fertile intermediate territory, where the besiegers might settle and derive the supplies necessary for a siege that might last many years. The reasons, therefore, why a majority of the tribes abandoned their original purpose to enter Canaan from the south and chose the more favorable route through the east-Jordan land are obvious and valid. ”

“ As it was not the intention of Moses to press into Canaan from the south, across the steep and difficult mountains, for the purpose of effecting its conquest, the Israelites could very well content themselves for the present with the defeat inflicted upon the Canaanites, and defer the complete execution of their vow until the time when they had gained a firm footing in Canaan. The banning of the Canaanites of Arad and its cities necessarily presupposed the immediate conquest of the whole territory, and the laying of all its cities in ashes. ”

“ In all the sources of the Pentateuch the possession of Canaan is the goal toward which the whole history moves, from the call of Abraham to the last exhortations of Moses in the plains of Moab, and they must all have narrated, however briefly, the occupation of the country. The history of the conquest and division of Canaan is the subject of the Book of Joshua. ”

“ Here, warriors, here the dreaded miseries flow,
Scenes of dire scorn, and seats of thickening woe. [ 360]
For bless'd as hope can paint, o'er all our toil
Let conquest flourish, and let glory smile;
Still in long train, what ceaseless ills await!
The waste of war, and frowns of adverse fate! [ 364]
While sheath'd in arms, the conquer'd realms we guard,
End of long pains, and patience' wish'd reward,
Those realms what culturing hand shall teach to bloom?
Or bid bright vesture purple o'er the loom?
Unfed, uncloath'd, our tribes shall waste away,
Our lands grow wild, and every art decay. ”

“ From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.
The neolithic inhabitants of Canaan, whose implements of worked and polished stone mark a great [Pg 125] advance upon the rough flints of their remote predecessors, belonged to the short, dark-skinned race which spread itself over the shores of the Mediterranean. Dwelling in rude huts, they employed for household use rough vessels of kneaded clay which they fashioned by hand and baked in the fire. ”

“ Even when we introduce judicious little variations there is sometimes astonishing reluctance to credit us with the inventiveness which we feel to be our own.
Some writers have boldly gone to the root of the matter and minimized the extent to which Canaan was influenced by Babylonia. This is perfectly legitimate. We cannot be too cautious how we use the facts of history. Eastern lands show to-day that the tide of conquest may roll over them and leave little trace behind. Egypt was influential in Palestine once, but there is not much trace of its influence in Canaan. ”

“ He who would foolishly tax the sages of Canaan with a bucolic light-mindedness must first walk in Piccadilly in early June, stroll down the Corso in Rome before Ash Wednesday, or regard those windows of Fifth Avenue whose curtains are withdrawn of a winter Sunday; for in each of these great streets, wherever the windows, not of trade, are widest, his eyes must behold wise men, like to those of Canaan, executing always their same purpose. ”

“ These foes to aid, what countless throngs will join!
What peopled realms against our arms combine! [ 230]
From Gibeon's walls, and where tremendous powers
Surround imperial Hazor's hundred towers,
Or where proud shores the western main behold,
Or orient Gihon's haughty tides are roll'd,
I see to fearful combat millions rise, [ 235]
Chiefs mount the car, and point the fated prize;
See in the van-guard haughty Conquest ride
Lo, murder'd thousands pour the ruddy tide!
O'er Israel's camp the clouds of vengeance lower,
Fear wings our flight, and flames our race devour. ”

“ All weak nations were at the mercy of their stronger neighbors, and no one ever questioned the morality of it. It is good to know, moreover, that conquest, after all, was not the chief method by which the Hebrews made themselves masters of Canaan. ”

“ We must look for information to the systematic excavations that are at last being made on the sites of the old Canaanitish towns. Already cuneiform tablets have been found on them, and though these belong to the Egyptian period we may hope that before long others may be discovered of later date. We have still to bridge over the age which elapsed between the final withdrawal of Egyptian domination and the conquest of the country by Philistines and Israelites. When that age begins the script and official language of Canaan are still Babylonian ”

“ It furnishes not the leaders but the mass of mobs; and it springs up at times of crisis from Heaven knows where. You might have driven through all the streets of Canaan, a week before the trial, and have seen four or five such fellows; but from the day of its beginning the Square was full of them, dingy shuttlecocks batted up into view by the Tocsin. ”

“ Unreal ills foresaw, and fancied dangers fear'd.
Yet still those views a kind indulgence claim,
Your fame their glory, and your bliss their aim.
Should this bold course be doom'd to woe severe,
Pure is my warning voice, my conscience clear; [ 810]
On destin'd fight should friendly Conquest smile,
With joy, my soul shall welcome every toil;
In Israel's cause, to scenes of danger driven,
To war is transport, and to die is heaven.
The hero ceas'd: a faint applause was heard, [ 815]
And half-form'd smiles around the plain appear'd,
With startling sound the trump's deep voice began ”

“ She sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had ever seen; but between him and this charming vision there swept, through the warm, scented June air, a veil of snow like a driven fog, and, half obscured in the heart of it, a young girl stood, knee-deep in a drift piled against an old picket gate, her black water-proof and shabby skirt flapping in the blizzard like torn sails, one of her hands out-stretched toward him, her startled eyes fixed on his.
"And, oh, how like you," said the lady; "how like you and nobody else in the world, Joe, to have a yellow dog!" ”

“ It is but natural that southern and central Canaan should have long remained inaccessible to outside influence, and that the effects of Babylonian civilization should have been confined at first to eastern Syria and to the frontier districts scattered along the middle course of the Euphrates. Recent digging by natives so far to the north as the neighbourhood of Carchemish, for example, have revealed some remarkable traces of connexion with Babylonia at a very early period. ”

“ We gather, for instance, that Egypt succeeds in preventing Babylon from giving support to the revolts in Canaan, but she does not hesitate to encourage Assyria, which is now beginning to display her power as Babylon's rival. Burna-Buriash makes this clear when he complains that Akhenaten has received an embassy from the Assyrians, whom he boastfully refers to as his subjects; and he contrasts Babylon's own reception of Canaanite proposals of alliance against Egypt in the time of his father Kurigalzu. ”

“ Eskew, like Rome, was saved by a cackle, in which he joined, and a few moments later, as the bench loafers saw, was pulled down into his seat by the Colonel.
The voices of the fathers fell to the pitch of ordinary discourse; the drowsy town was quiet again; the whine of the planing-mill boring its way through the sizzling air to every wakening ear. Far away, on a quiet street, it sounded faintly, like the hum of a bee across a creek, and was drowned in the noise of men at work on the old Tabor house. ”

“ Whether or not Joe could have walked through the entire mob as he had walked through these is a matter for speculation; it was believed in Canaan that he could. Already a gust of mirth began to sweep over the sterner spirits as they paused to marvel no less at the disconcerting advance of the lawyer than at the spectacle presented by the intrepid dare-devils upon the steps; a kind of lane actually opening before the young man as he walked steadily on. ”

“ Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the extent of their conspicuousness; but it was not the blush that Joe remembered had reddened the tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone long ago, though it had not left her merely pink and white. This was a delicate rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples as the earliest dawn rises. If there had been many words left in Joe, he would have called it a divine blush; it fascinated him, and if anything could have deepened the glamour about her, it would have been this blush. ”

“ Eskew—there is no option but to declare—was no longer Eskew. It is the truth; since the morning when Ariel Tabor came down from Joe's office, leaving her offering of white roses in that dingy, dusty, shady place, Eskew had not been himself. His comrades observed it somewhat in a physical difference, one of those alterations which may come upon men of his years suddenly, like a "sea change": his face was whiter, his walk slower, his voice filed thinner; he creaked louder when he rose or sat. Old always, from his boyhood, he had, in the turn of a hand, become aged. ”

“ And you can't learn from print, never! Yet I've grown in what I SEE—grown so that the world is full of beauty to me that I never dreamed of seeing when I began. But I can't paint it—I can't get it on the canvas. Ah, I think I might have known how to, if I hadn't had to teach myself, if I could only have seen how some of the other fellows did their work. If I'd ever saved money to get away from Canaan—if I could have gone away from it and come back knowing how to paint it—if I could have got to Paris for just one month! ”

“ Mamie, almost as white as the old man, was silent; but she had not hesitated in her daring, now that she had been taught to dare; she had not come to be Ariel's friend and honest follower for nothing; and it was Mamie who had cried to Joe to lift Eskew into the carriage. "You must come too," she said. "We will need you." And so it came to pass that under the eyes of Canaan Joe Louden rode in Judge Pike's carriage at the bidding of Judge Pike's daughter. ”

“ Thro' the dark wave, and o'er the howling plain,
Ordain'd, when yon proud towers in dust are hurl'd,
To found an empire, and to rule a world;
O'er earth's far realms bid truth and virtue shine,
And spread to nature's bounds the Name divine. ”

“ Joe laughed. "It wouldn't seem strange if you lived with the Canaan that I do. Sam had been down-town during the afternoon and had met friends; the colored people are a good deal like a freemasonry, you know. A great many knew last night all about what had happened, and had their theories about what might happen to-day in case the two men met. Still, you see, those who knew, also knew just what people not to tell. The Tocsin is the only newspaper worth the name here; but even if the Tocsin had known of the trouble, it wouldn't have been likely to mention it. ”

“ Joe's cheeks went a sudden crimson; for it was the lady of his old dreams.
Seven years had made Mamie Pike only prettier. She had grown into her young womanhood with an ampleness that had nothing of oversufficiency in it, nor anywhere a threat that some day there might be too much of her. Not quite seventeen when he had last seen her, now, at twenty-four, her amber hair elaborately becoming a plump and regular face, all of her old charm came over him once more, and it immediately seemed to him that he saw clearly his real reason for coming back to Canaan. ”